I began my addiction when I was 12 years old. By the time 40, 45 years later, when it, you know, it threatened my life and maimed me in terms of my voice, I was so addicted that I was smoking four packs of cigarettes a day.

Your characters get angry at you if you speak about them and stop you from giving birth to them on the page in revenge. Real writers sit down and write. Wannabe writers sit around and talk.

I do want to make a special appeal to women movie stars to, I think, have a special responsibility these days to stop smoking, not to do it up on screen because the example that's being set is really an awful example.

What Hollywood has done through the years is glamorized it even more, made it sexy, made it sensuous, and dwelled on those pleasure aspects, completing ignoring the fact that Hollywood as an industry, was pointing the gun at young people - pointing a gun at them when they were 12 to 14 years.

There are no crowds out there demanding to see smoking scenes in movies.

In the olden days, of course, cigarette companies would pay to have their product advertised in movies and to have actors smoke cigarettes.[Ronald Reagan used to do it.]

I had read too many memoirs that were written after the writer or the director was past his or her prime.